William Scoresby Routledge

William Scoresby Routledge, FRGS (1859–1939) was a British ethnographer, anthropologist and adventurer. With his wife, Katherine Routledge, he completed the first ethnographies of the Kikuyu (East Africa) and the people of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Early life William was first child of William Routledge and Anne Sophia Twycross, who met and married in Melbourne, Australia. He was named after the British arctic explorer and whaler Dr. William Scoresby, a family friend. Scoresby spent his early years at "Vaucluse" in Richmond, Victoria, before returning to England in about 1867 with his parents and three younger sisters following the death of his father's brother and business partner. His family then lived at "Yarra-Yarra", at 3 Upperton Road, Eastbourne, Sussex. William was the first cousin of British seismographer, John Milne (1850–1913) who worked in Japan during the Meiji Restoration. His paternal family had roots in Nova Scotia where his great-grandfather, Mr Justice Thomas Chandler Haliburton, was an MP, and author of an important history of the area: "Historical and Statistical Account of Nova-Scotia." The two volumes were published by Howe in 1830.